Nobel Peace Prize Winner: Malala Yousafzai

This year, one of the winners of the Nobel Peace Price is Kailash Satyarthi. Satyarthi, a 60-year-old man from Delhi, has saved over 80,000 children from child labor with his organization Bachpan Bachao Andolan.

Malala Yousafzai, the outspoken, 17-year-old Pakistani advocate for education, is the other winner.

I don’t know what you were doing when you were eleven years old, but it probably isn’t as amazing as what Malala Yousafzai was doing. When I was eleven, I was a pretty cool kid: I wrote poetry and read big books and played with animals and had friends and such. None of that, however, comes at all close to being as impressive as Yousafzai’s acts at that age.

For those of you who don’t know her story, Yousafzai started her journey as an advocate for children’s education when she was 11 years old and writing an anonymous blog for the BBC. As the Taliban took over and started to impose a ban on women’s education, Yousafzai bravely criticized the Taliban’s actions. Unfortunately, international recognition of her words made her a target. In 2012, the Taliban shot her in the head. Miraculously, she survived and, along with continuing her own education, has continued to fight for others’ education by starting the Malala Fund.

At 17, Malala Yousafzai is not only the youngest woman but also the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Her bravery and perseverance goes to show us all that you can profoundly change the world in big ways at any age.